Gordon Brown pledges more nursery places to get parents back to work

Gordon Brown will today (Tuesday) pledge to provide free nursery places for UK toddlers in a bid to get parents back to work.

A package of measures unveiled by the government will include free places for all 600,000 two-year-olds, estimated at a £1bn cost to taxpayers. Currently, parents can claim up to 15 hours per week of free childcare for three and four-year old children.

“More choice for women and for families is one of the themes of the next stage of our policy reforms,” Brown said. “This is not a government that walks away but a government that’s on the side of hard-working families, helping them to climb the ladder.”